McDonnell, Cyril
(2017)
Brentano’s New Understanding of Psychology
in Light of His Reading of English Empiricists.
Bretano Studien, 15 (1).
pp. 263-290.
ISSN 0935-7009
Abstract
In his 1866 habilitation thesis Brentano defends Aristotle’s concept of psychology
as ‘the science of the soul’, but in his next study Psychology from
an Empirical Standpoint (1874) he expounds a ‘modern conception’ of psychology
as the natural science of ‘psychical phenomena’. This article argues
that although Brentano has become clearly impressed by the rise of the
natural sciences, the priority which he attributes to the ‘inner perception of
our own psychical phenomena’ as the ‘experiential basis’ for the science of
‘empirical psychology’ in his 1874 study indicates that he is now following
a line of enquiry that is advanced from within the tradition of modern philosophical
psychology accredited to Descartes and advocated by ‘English
empiricists’, such as, Locke, Hume and J.S. Mill, authors whom Brentano
read for several years after the completion of his habilitation thesis. This
article examines the influence of the ‘English empiricists’ on Brentano’s
new understanding of ‘psychology’ and his celebrated discovery of the intentionality
of consciousness in his 1874 study, a tenet that is not found
in Aristotle or the medieval Aristotelians but one that is found, albeit in
embryonic fashion, in those ‘English empiricists’ whom he read.
| Item Type: |
Article
|
| Keywords: |
Brentano; New Understanding; Psychology
in Light; Reading; English Empiricists; |
| Academic Unit: |
Faculty of Arts & Humanities > Philosophy |
| Item ID: |
9306 |
| Depositing User: |
Dr Cyril McDonnell
|
| Date Deposited: |
20 Mar 2018 14:10 |
| Journal or Publication Title: |
Bretano Studien |
| Publisher: |
Verlag |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| URI: |
|
| Use Licence: |
This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available
here |
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